Maltese take aim at MEP’s suit

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

7/12/06, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 8:39 PM CET

Never mind the birds. In Malta it is the hunters who regard themselves as an endangered species.

It might not seem that way to outsiders. Indeed, the European Parliament's petitions committee, in a report highly critical of the Maltese, reports an estimate that there are 70 hunters per square kilometre of huntable land. The chances of survival for any unfortunate bird which flies into range of Malta are reduced still further by the island's habit (unique in the EU) of allowing hunters to trap and shoot the birds in the spring, when they have just arrived from Africa and are supposed to be getting on with breeding.

The European Commission has just sent Malta a warning that it is in breach of EU rules by allowing the spring hunting of quails and turtle doves.

The Maltese hunting federation, FKNK, has shot back an angry reply to the Parliament's report, describing it as "amateurish and ridiculous...loaded with fallacies, outright lies, insults, slanders, fantasies and misconceptions". Other adjectives the federation applies are bombastic, hideous and offensive. So it is probably safe to conclude that they do not like it.

The federation's greatest scorn is reserved for Marcin Libicki, the Polish MEP who chairs the petitions committee, which has had to field several petitions from EU citizens complaining about Maltese hunting. The federation complains that Libicki went to the Dingli Cliffs, on the north-east of the island, "all dressed up in suit and tie of course!", as if that were some kind of punishable offence.

The federation has asked the European Ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros to ensure that "such reports... cannot ever waste any more time and resources of anyone, especially serious and solid institutions such as the European Parliament". At the very least, the ombudsman could ask that MEPs dress appropriately.

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